Steam in Italy, 2010

He writes:

Despite the bad economic situation of the nation in general and the railways in particular I recently managed to board three steam hauled railtours and see four different locos at work. As Stefano Paolini stated in his report published on your site the situation of preservation groups in Italy is very precarious, starved of funds and dependant on the goodwill of the railway operators. But we are soldiering on. On the 5th of September I was in Reggio Emilia for a run from there to Ciano d'Enza along a branch operated by the Ferrovie dell'Emilia-Romagna (FER). The loco, no. CCFR 7, is a classic German built 0-6-0WT similar to Prussian Railway's T3 class. That day I concentrated more on the landscape than the train taking no decent pictures of it so here (left) is a picture taken on a previous occasion. The loco is in the care of the SAFRE group, http://www.safre.it.

Three weeks later I went from Florence to Pistoia with no.685 089 one of the only two operable examples of this once ubiquitous class of express four-cylinder 2-6-2s. Here is a picture (left below) of this loco proudly placing her train on the platform. On October 17th I manned the sales stand onboard a railtour from Bologna to Marradi (mid-way between Faenza and Florence) hauled by no.740 143 freight 2-8-0. The shot (right below) was taken in Bologna at dawn before departure. 

On the same day a tour also ran from Florence to Marradi bringing there no. 741 120, a Crosti boilered 2-8-0. The picture (below) shows it in front of the disused subshed in Marradi.